A 'Teacher Corps' for Urban Schools

Current proposals designed to attract highly qualified individuals
to teaching overlook a large pool of recent college graduates who,
though lacking professional training in education, stand ready to work
in our schools.

As a way station between undergraduate and professional schools,
teaching appeals to young people with its inherent variety and with the
chance to do something useful for a few years. Acknowledging that they
are the recipients of an excellent education, many liberal-arts
graduates of competitive colleges want to use this advantage to
contribute to the greater good of society before entering more
lucrative careers.

In a survey of the class of 1989 at Barnard and Columbia Colleges,
60 percent of the 818 seniors who responded indicated they would
consider teaching in an elementary or secondary school following
graduation. Most of these students said they would be willing to teach
for two to three years.

Over half of the minority students who responded to the survey
indicated a willingness to teach; this group is sorely needed in urban
schools, where minority youngsters have found few positive role
models.

The major appeal of teaching, as cited by the Barnard and Columbia
students, was the opportunity to influence young people's lives. With
the addition of incentives, such as partial scholarships to graduate
and professional schools, the number who said they would consider
teaching rose to three-fourths of the respondents.

If this sample is at all representative of liberal-arts majors at
other institutions, and we assume that those who did not respond to the
survey would choose not to teach, then roughly 36 percent of these
graduates might be willing to teach, a national pool of 115,000
students annually.

The study points to the need for and potential of a "teacher
corps,'' a kind of domestic Peace Corps that would recruit able young
people to work for a few years in our most troubled public schools.

The notion of a teacher corps is hardly new, and a bill to revive
the concept is currently being prepared by the Senate Labor and Human
Resources Committee, chaired by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of
Massachusetts. But Mr. Kennedy's bill--providing scholarships for two
years of undergraduate or graduate study for those who say they will
teach for five years--fails to recognize that many talented
liberal-arts graduates are willing to work in public schools now,
before moving on to other careers.

As one of the authors of the original Teacher Corps bill in 1965,
Mr. Kennedy may recall that program's success in attracting idealistic
young adults who were not necessarily committed to a career in
teaching.

In fact, an informal teaching corps already operates across the
nation. Estimates of the number of public-school teachers who leave the
profession within their first five years run as high as 50 percent, and
the most capable young people are the most likely to change careers.
Many give up teaching jobs because they are discouraged by the system
or because the salaries are too low. But others who leave the
profession never viewed teaching as a long-term commitment in the first
place. A recent study conducted in New Jersey revealed that 40 percent
of those entering teaching planned to teach for less than 10 years or
did not know how long they would teach.

Young people who want to teach for only a few years before beginning
graduate or professional school have always found private schools
receptive to employing them. Since most states do not require
certification for private-school teaching, these institutions have been
longstanding beneficiaries of a pool of talented, temporary teachers.
Many independent schools, in particular, depend on these liberal-arts
graduates to bring energy and enthusiasm to their classrooms, playing
fields, and dormitories--at low cost.

The young college graduates, school officials admit, are often
unprepared for the demanding responsibilities they are assigned, and
they receive meager compensation. Through internships and mentoring,
schools are making efforts to provide a more equitable arrangement--but
even with the prospect of being overworked and underpaid, plenty of
young people remain interested in teaching jobs. According to William
Baeckler, executive director of Independent Educational Services in
Princeton, N.J., the largest teacher-placement agency for independent
schools, there are always many more "rookie inquiries" than there are
places. "With the exception of the fields of mathematics and foreign
languages," says Mr. Baeckler, "there were approximately four
applicants for each available teaching job this fall."

We should capitalize and improve on this system of temporary
employment that has been operating unofficially on a small scale for
decades. Rather than look down upon young people who see teaching as
temporary work, we should seize the opportunity to increase their ranks
and direct them to our inner-city schools, where we need them most.

Since liberal-arts graduates lack sufficient professional training
in education to work as full-fledged teachers, we should think of
teacher-corps participants as coaches or interns whose jobs would be to
work directly with students, individually or in small groups, under the
guidance of experienced teachers. Because these potential teachers are
motivated to teach by a desire to work with young people, schools would
not be permitted to assign them to administrative tasks, such as
paperwork or guard duty. They could, however, be included in any aspect
of school life that involved direct interaction with youngsters. Since
many disadvantaged children require personalized learning experiences,
corps teachers optimally employed would provide an invaluable
educational resource.

Rather than leave training to local agencies, we should tap the
nation's leading pedagogical experts to design programs at major
universities. Intensive workshops held during the summer months
following graduation could equip participants with basic teaching
skills and prepare them to understand cultural differences among their
students.

To make it feasible for all capable college graduates, not just the
privileged, to participate, financial assistance must be available. Low
compensation would not discourage young people from teaching, as the
Columbia-Barnard study indicated, if meaningful inducements were
provided for the future. Many college graduates are confronted with
payments on undergraduate loans immediately following graduation, and
they face increased debts for graduate study. Forty-seven percent of
this year's graduates from the Columbia School of Law, for example, had
begun their legal studies with accumulated undergraduate loans
averaging over $7,000. One out of three students completing graduate
studies at Yale University in 1988 entered with undergraduate debts
averaging over $6,000. James Milligan, dean of admissions and financial
aid at the Columbia School of Law, advises deferring interest payments
on federal loans during years of teacher-corps service as an incentive
to join.

The Congress could promote involvement and address recent graduates'
financial needs by offering partial scholarships to graduate school.
Endorsement of teacher-corps experience from the deans of the most
competitive graduate and professional schools would add further
incentive.

Businesses seeking entry-level candidates with increased maturity
and social awareness might reserve slots for teacher-corps
veterans--thereby creating opportunities that a third of the
Barnard-Columbia students who would consider teaching said they would
find appealing. Parents who might otherwise discourage their sons and
daughters from entering teaching would perhaps look favorably on a
three-year commitment with attached career opportunities and financial
inducements.

A minimum term of three years would be necessary to make the program
worthwhile for schools. Although most of those who entered the corps
would not contemplate a career in teaching beyond a few years, some who
tried teaching on a provisional basis might discover that the rewards
of teaching outweighed the appeal of more profitable careers.

As reforms begin to take hold in schools, as teachers are granted
more authority and better compensation, and as the status of teaching
increases, perhaps more would decide to stay. For those who
demonstrated exceptional promise as educators and chose to continue,
generous fellowships for full-time graduate study should be made
available. Schools of education would welcome these well-educated young
people with experience in urban schools.

Those who left after three years of teaching--whether with feelings
of accomplishment or of discouragement--would do so with a profound
respect for the complexities of educating children and for the value of
quality and equity in education. Having gained an understanding of the
educational enterprise, corps teachers would in many cases become vocal
advocates of educational improvement.

It makes sense to target the nation's most valuable human
resource--well-educated young people--where we need it the most, in
improving the quality of urban schools. Given the predisposition of the
101st Congress to endorse various civilian-volunteer efforts, the time
is ripe to gain support for a teacher corps that capitalizes on those
who are ready to work in schools now, not just on those who say they
may serve them.

Policymakers must act to influence the type of legislation that will
draw recent college graduates into educational service. In the past,
the nation has never succeeded in upgrading teaching during times of
shortage; by tapping the large pool of qualified potential teachers, we
have the opportunity to alter history.

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